The field of the present invention relates to optical devices incorporating distributed optical structures. In particular, distributed optical structures providing signal guiding for optical signals within optical interconnection circuits are disclosed herein.
One or more distributed optical structures (i.e., sets of diffractive elements) in a channel waveguide, an optical fiber, a slab waveguide, or another guided-wave optical structure may be used in a variety of devices for beam steering, spectral filtering, laser frequency control, spectral multiplexing, optical sensing, or other functions. It is often desirable that such devices be optimized, or nearly so, for routing, mapping, or coupling optical signals between input and output optical ports with minimal optical loss. Distributed optical structures designed by computed interference between simulated optical signals are disclosed herein that may enable such optimized routing, coupling, or mapping. Also disclosed are distributed optical structures designed via ray tracing and other methods known in the art to provide optimized routing, coupling, or mapping.
Various embodiments, implementations, and adaptations of such diffractive element sets are disclosed in: application Ser. No. 11/055,559 filed Feb. 9, 2005; application Ser. No. 11/021,549 filed Dec. 23, 2004; application Ser. No. 10/998,185 filed Nov. 26, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,993,223 issued Jan. 31, 2006); application Ser. No. 10/989,236 filed Nov. 15, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,965,716 issued Nov. 15, 2005); application Ser. No. 10/898,527 filed Jul. 22, 2004; application Ser. No. 10/989,244 filed Nov. 15, 2005 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,961,491 issued Nov. 01, 2005); application Ser. No. 10/798,089 filed Mar. 10, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,823,115 issued Nov. 23, 2004); application Ser. No. 10/653,876 filed Sep. 2, 2003 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,829,417 issued Dec. 7, 2004); application Ser. No. 10/602,327 filed Jun. 23, 2003 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,859,318 issued Feb. 22, 2005); application Ser. No. 10/229,444 filed Aug. 27, 2002 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,678,429 issued Jan. 13, 2004); application Ser. No. 09/843,597 filed Apr. 26, 2001 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,965,464 issued Nov. 15, 2005); and application Ser. No. 09/811,081 filed Mar. 16, 2001 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,879,441 issued Apr. 12, 2005). Each of said applications is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. A publication entitled “Planar holographic optical processing devices” (T. W. Mossberg, Opt. Lett. 26 414 (2001)) is also incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.